There is not Briz-M upper stage on Zenit-2SLB rocket for Fobos-Grunt launch, there is not upper stage there at all, there is a cruise propulsion engine Flagman based on Fregat upper stage.

Yes, of course. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Somehow must have had the Proton in the back of my mind.

As for burn times, the article in "Vestnik" gives 8.4 minutes for the first burn and 8.5 minutes for the second burn. No duration is given for the escape burn, probably because that will be calculated only after the orbital parameters of Fobos-Grunt are carefully measured following the second burn.

This effort to gather visual observations would be most helpful in the event of anomalies.

One of the major stumbling blocks in the accident investigation for Mars-96 was that the insertion burns were scheduled over the Gulf of Guinea, off Africa, 'in the blind', without the normal Soviet-era tracking ship on the ocean beneath the ground track.

Russia in 1996 just could not afford it.

Not having the real-time data on the insertion anomaly that DID occur in 1996 led directly to the early confusion about where/when the probe actually reentered. As a result, the story solidified that it [and its plutonium batteries] had fallen safely into the Pacific Ocean when they actually came down over the Andes near the Chile-Bolivia border, where no search was ever made and no warnings were ever issued to the local population.See http://www.jamesoberg.com/plutonium.html

Both Moscow and Washington found it convenient to let the initial misperceptions stand, so as not to alarm people -- or upset the still-brittle US-Russian space station alliance.

Thin red line – coasting in sunlightThick red line – burning in sunlightThick black line – burning in shadowThin black line – coasting in shadow

First on-orbit burn: November 08 // 22:55:48 GMT for 9 min 30 sechttp://phobos.cosmos.ru/uploads/pics/1EB_02.jpgBegins over Chile, south of Concepcion, heads northeast over Rosario/Parana [west of Buenos Aires], Urugualana, up the Argentine/Uruguay border, Londrina, just NW of Montes Claros, and off the coast between Natal and Fortaleza, then into Earth’s shadow.

Second on-orbit burn Nov 09 // 01:02:49 GMT for 17 min 20 sechttp://phobos.cosmos.ru/uploads/pics/2EB_02.jpgCross coast of Peru near Ica, head NE, south tip of Colombia near Esperanca, Brazil, across eastern Venezuela, cross coast at Orinoco’s ‘Boca Grande’,visible from Trinidad and neighboring islands, enter Earth shadow while still burning, heading NE out over Atlantic.

"Very soon—perhaps by the time you’ve read this article—Russia will launch the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars. Whether you’re interested in planetary science or human spaceflight there is good reason to hope that this mission succeeds, but also reason to expect it to fail.This combination of great ambition and inexperience makes Phobos-Grunt a risky mission.

Phobos-Grunt is an incredibly ambitious mission to send a spacecraft to the Martian moon Phobos, perform analysis there, retrieve some samples (“Grunt” is Russian for “soil”), possibly even including ejected pieces of Mars, and then return them to Earth. In addition to its scientific instrument suite and its sample return equipment, the spacecraft will also carry a Chinese Mars orbiter. In terms of sophistication, this mission is the equivalent of NASA’s mid-sized New Frontiers class of spacecraft, with an impressive science suite and many engineering challenges."

And:

“Phobos-Grunt would be a powerful demonstration proof that bringing samples back from Mars orbit is possible. More importantly, it would place the Russians in the running to provide the vital sample return spacecraft for an expensive Mars sample return campaign.”

"If all goes well tomorrow (November 9 Moscow time) a Zenit-2 rocket will send the first Russian mission out of Earth orbit since the fall of the Soviet Union. In addition to it being a first for post-Communist Russia, it carries other first hopes: the first Chinese mission to Mars and the first deliberate sending of life from Earth into the solar system. The mission is complex and awesome: a 13.5-metric-ton spacecraft (including a 115-kilogram Chinese orbiter and 90-gram Planetary Society Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, or LIFE) will be launched on a 33-month roundtrip journey to the Martian moon Phobos, with the objective of landing there, collecting a soil sample, and returning the sample to Earth."